Too Much To Declare

Yet now, I can't, or won't, bring it together.  I can write about my visit next week, can't I?  Although my mum isn't ill, it crossed my mind yesterday that one visit soon could be the last time.

No getting away from it.

You can't avoid responsibility this time. No weazley words are going to help you now.

Let's face it, you're a shit.

I want a ticket to take me from Brighton to Guildford, and later back.  I have discovered on previous weeks that it costs 20% more to travel into the nation's capital and out again - which would be a silly, acute angle shaped route, taking a little longer.  The more direct route takes you a picturesque way along the South Downs.

"Not via London," I specifiy.

The ticketista gave me a suspicious look.  "Are you going via Clapham Junction?"

"I said, not via London."

"But are you changing at Clapham Junction?"  He is getting annoyed.

"Clapham Junction is in London."  In the middle of the London Borough of Wandsworth, with an SW postcode.

By now my ticketista is postively snarling with contempt.  For him  (or rather Southern Trains, he has no room for private thoughts) London  only exists as a station with London in the title, like Londonvictoria, Londonwaterloo (previously known as Waterloo) and presumably Londonlondonbridge.

"Are you going via Gatwick?" he asks"patiently", as to a dimwit.

All trains from Brighton to Clapham Junction go via Gatwick, but not all of them stop.  He meand do I intend to change trains at Gatwick.  But I decide philophising about the  meaning of the word via (or indeed Gatwick) is probably not worth the hassle.  He's the boss.  I'm just an idiot customer.

This view gets confirmed a few minutes later by the guard-announcer on the train I boarded.  "You shuld be aware," the guard intones (I promise the sureality of this post is not a product of my imagination) "that customers will be joining us at stations along the route."  Gee, I would never have guessed.

Firstly I enjoy making money.  I'm good at business.  Screw naturalistic novel writing.  I'm best when being a lot more agressive.  And this morning I made the outlines of deal which could be unexpecetedly make my family an unexpected profit.

Secondy - my 'family' - a hotchpotch of siblings, cousins and two, barely-surviving aunts.  They are small minded, suspicious of me - and, despite my years of efforts to be cuddly and unthreatening - they are afraid of me.  Instead of confrontation, they will wait till my back is turned and stab it.

They think I am just like my long deceased dad.

Well, I know one thing for sure - he would never have written a blog like this one, even if the technology had been available.

He brought me up to be a choirboy - well, phooey to that.

Some big changes are afoot in the heart of Alec Weston.  Standby for more details.

E-mails that say absolutely nothing.

No text.  No images. No links. No address line, so no way of replying.

My ISP declares them virus free, and spam.

But spam for what?  What possibe advantage can they gain whoever is sending them.

If someone is sending them.

Communication from a distant planet?  Or zen spam, pointing to a reality of nothingness? or the nothingness of reality?

Anyone got an idea what's going on?

I was down on the beach looking for a fishmonger's a friend had told me about.  And lo & behold, under one of the arches below the promenade, I found a small, rotund fisherman, complete with nearby fishing boat.  He only sells locally caught fish, and I bought a plaice, which he filleted, for £2.

It was still early.  I walked back through side streets to Bill's, where I had breakfast and too much black coffee.

At a table near me, a woman stood upt to go - and spilled a whole lot of stuff, including a sugar bowl, on the floor.  It made a extraordinary amount of noise.  A waitress rushed over, produced a pistol and shot the unfortunate customer. There was remarkably little blood to see before she collapsed. 

I wouldn't have thought it was legal to shoot someone on so litlle provocation.  Anyway, obviously the staff were used to incidents like this, because two uniformed flunkies rushed over with a body bag and quickly disposed of the corpse....

The phone calls from debtors have stopped, but the letters keep arriving, with no forwarding address except the solictors who they used to sell the flat.

They?  Well, two name were on the legal paperwork.  But now I have learnt that last year one of the guys took out a legal injunction to stop the other one visiting.

Now, I don't believe in fung thingy - can't even spell it - and years ago I lived in a house where a murder had allegedly been committed, without me apparently suffering - but I'm thinking of devising a ceremony to remove negative spirits.

I've registered, I've chosen the vid.  But how do I download it from youtube to here?

Everlasting love to someone who can help me.

Meanwhile...

It's all in the mind, neurotic.  Blah.

The climax of Tennesse Williams/Gore Vidal's 1959 movie Suddenly Last Summer when the beautiful Sebastian (Montgommery Clift) is hounded, dismembered and eaten by the boys on a Spanish beach.

and

Britney Spears' A Piece of Me.

Does Ms Spears' management think that her best career move right now would be her own physical dismemberment?

Despite an extensive google-trawl, I can't find anyone who shares the view that this video is horrifying.

And there hasn't been an epiphanic moment, when I suddenly'understand" what it's all "really" about.

can't say

I have found

much

to feel enthusiastic about

today.

The problem is - sooner or later patience turns into passivity, and feeling a bit of a victim, and so diminished and depressed.

And, lets face it, patience does not always have its own reward.  To take a trivial example, if I stay all meek and calm I can never find anything I have lost in the kitchen.  The moment I shout and swear, it (eg an egg cup or the bread knife) appears in front of me.

However, in my regular morning googling-for-practical-things session, I came across what claims to be the first ever conference/trade fair concerned exclusively with self-publishing.

And lo and and behold - the conference is taking place here, near my new home - as part of the Brighton Festival, from 18th May

2  The makers of Kleenex tissues never intended people to blow their noses on them.

3  The Chinese version of Pop Idol was called The Mongolian Cow Sour Yoghurt Supergirl Contest.

I feel cold and confused.

And frankly a bit boredandlonely

Others - journalists and specialists can all say this much better.  And they are more likely to predict than I who will succeed him.

But I just want to point out that today, in ten months time, on 20th January 2009, Geroge W Bush will cease to be President.

In order to turn my flat into not only a home but a good place to work, I need to rearrange things, throw away things - and above all, purchase things - eg  kitchen units, cupboards, a washing machine.  (I'm not rich, but having just sold my London house I have the passing illusion that I am.)

But why feel guilty about it?  Being a Full Time Consumer I am performing a valuable role to the Economy.

I consult the Which? and John Lewis websites back and forth all morning (none of the model numbers seem to correspond, because the Products change every month) until I'm dizzy enough to make choices.  I order.  I wait.  I unpack the Products - and have to find a way of disposing of the cardboard and crickly stuff.  Nowadays, like all Resonsible Consumers I make sure that as much as possible is recycled....

(don't forget to fill in the guarantee form! We can't help you without a receipt)

And then I Consume - a plumber's time to fix the waste pipe from the washing machine ... then detergent, water softner, water, electiricty - in modern, moderate amounts...  But which plumber? which detergent? which energy supplier?  A Good Consumer never gets these choices wrong!

Write?  Fiction?  Well, maybe I'll get back to it one day...  But how am I helping Britain doing that?